Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 21 July (HL6581), whether their paper on group-based child sexual exploitation will include any consideration of the religious characteristics of offenders.

The Home Secretary announced on 19th May that the Government intends to publish a paper on group-based child sexual exploitation. This work is currently ongoing, and we will publish the paper by the end of this year.

We intend this paper to present the available evidence on this form of offending, bringing together all of the insights gathered in the course of the Home Office’s work on this issue. We are not excluding any characteristics from our consideration, and conclusions will be drawn from the demographic data that is available.

The paper will set the direction for future work to tackle this form of offending.